Altered Long- and Short-Range Functional Connectivity Density in Patients With Thyroid-Associated Ophthalmopathy: A Resting-State fMRI Study

Abstract

Background and PurposeAlthough previous neuroimaging studies have demonstrated emotion- and psychology-associated brain abnormalities in patients with thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy (TAO), the changes of brain functional connectivity in TAO were seldom focused. We aimed to investigate interregional and intraregional functional interactions in patients with TAO by using resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) with long- and short-range functional connectivity density (FCD) analysis.MethodsThirty patients with TAO and 30 well-matched healthy controls (HCs) were recruited in our study. Long- and short-range FCD values were calculated and compared between the two groups. Correlations between long- and short-range FCD values and clinical indicators were analyzed.ResultsCompared with HCs, patients with showed both increased long- and short-range FCDs in the left middle frontal gyrus (MFG), orbital part of superior frontal gyrus (ORBsup), and dorsolateral part of superior frontal gyrus (SFGdor); meanwhile, both decreased long- and short-range FCDs in bilateral postcentral gyrus (PoCG), left superior parietal gyrus (SPG), and inferior parietal (IPL). In addition, patients with TAO showed increased short-range FCD in the right SFGdor, bilateral medial part of superior frontal gyrus (SFGmed), left orbital part of middle frontal gyrus (ORBmid), and orbital part of inferior frontal gyrus (ORBinf), as well as decreased short-range FCD in the right supplementary motor area (SMA) and the left paracentral lobule (PCL) than HCs. Moreover, the short-range value in the left SFGdor showed a negative correlation with Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) score (r = −0.501, p = 0.005).ConclusionOur findings complemented the functional neural mechanism of TAO, and provided potential neuroimaging markers for assessing the psychiatric, visual, and emotional disturbances in patients with TAO.

Altered dynamic brain activity and functional connectivity in thyroid‐associated ophthalmopathy

“…The decreased dFC between these two brain regions would be an indicator that the functional transmission of the dorsal visual stream might be disrupted in TAO. In addition, abnormalities in dorsal visual stream have also been reported in previous rs-fMRI studies of TAO Jiang et al, 2022), which further confirmed our hypothesis. Interestingly, the STG and TPOsup of TAO in our dALFF results showed higher temporal variability of brain activity.…”

“…Specifically, the prefrontal cortex performs top-down control by connecting other brain areas to accomplish complex cognitive processes (Jobson et al, 2021). An emerging study reported that compensatory elevation of short-range FC density in the left prefrontal cortex may progress with cognitive decline of TAO (Jiang et al, 2022).…”

“…Specifically, the prefrontal cortex performs top‐down control by connecting other brain areas to accomplish complex cognitive processes (Jobson et al, 2021 ). An emerging study reported that compensatory elevation of short‐range FC density in the left prefrontal cortex may progress with cognitive decline of TAO (Jiang et al, 2022 ). Given that TAO patients exhibited increased dALFF in the left prefrontal cortex, we deduced that the elevated dynamic brain activity of the left prefrontal cortex might also be a compensatory mechanism.…”

“…Functional connectivity (FC), as the most commonly used indicator to characterize brain functional interaction, is widely applied to reflect the time‐dependent neural activity patterns in anatomically isolated brain regions (Tong et al, 2021 ). A new rs‐fMRI study utilizing long‐ and short‐range FC density analysis demonstrated abnormal functional interaction in the prefrontal cortex and parietal lobe in TAO patients (Jiang et al, 2022 ). The findings of the initial application enhanced our confidence for the further exploration in TAO brain using FC method.…”

Abnormal regional spontaneous neural activity and functional connectivity in thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy patients with different activity: a resting-state fMRI study

“…However, there have been no studies investigating whether TAO affects primary sensory cortex function. Only one fMRI study of TAO reported reduced long- and short-range functional connectivity density (FCD) in the bilateral postcentral gyrus ( 32 ). We found that Postcentral_L ALFF values in active and inactive TAO patients were lower than those of HCs.…”